English is a difficult language ...... for some!
This is a true story from the Japanese Embassy in US!!!

A few days ago, Prime Minister Mori was given some Basic English conversation training before he visits Washington and meets president Barack Obama...

The instructor told Mori Prime Minister, when you shake hand with President Obama, please say 'how are you'. Then Mr. Obama should say, 'I am fine, and you?' Now, you should say 'me too'. Afterwards we translators, will do the work for you.

It looks quite simple, but the truth is…

When Mori met Obama, he mistakenly said 'who are you?' (Instead of 'How are you?'.)

Mr. Obama was a bit shocked but still managed to react with humor: 'Well, I'm Michelle's husband, ha- ha…'

Then Mori replied 'me too, ha-ha…'

Then there was a long silence in the meeting room.

 Contents

Common verbs that can be followed by infinitives
Common verbs that can be followed by bare infinitives
Common verbs that can be followed by object + infinitive
For-structure: for + object + infinitive
Common verbs that can be followed by gerund
Verb + object + -ing form
-ing form with passive meaning
-ing form or infinitive

In the phonology of stress-timed languages, the weak form of a word is a form that may be used when the word has no stress, and which is phonemically distinct from the strong form, used when the word is stressed. The strong form serves as the citation form. A weak form is a word as an unstressed syllable, and is therefore distinct from a clitic form, which is a word fused with an adjacent word, as in Italian mangiarla, 'to-eat-it'. A word may have multiple weak forms, or none. In some contexts, the strong form may be used even where the word is unstressed.

In English, most words will have at least one stressed syllable, and hence no separate strong and weak forms. All words which do have distinct strong and weak forms are monosyllables, and are usually function words or discourse particles. For most of these, the weak form is the one usually encountered in speech. As the extreme example, the strong form of the indefinite article a is used only in the rare cases when the word is stressed: naming the word, or when emphasizing indefiniteness. For instance:

Question: "Did you find the cat?"

Answer: "I found a [eɪ] cat." (i.e. maybe not the one you were referring to).

Otherwise (unless one is risking pomposity) the weak form [ə] is used for a.

The main words with weak forms in Received Pronunciation are:

Other dialects or accents may have others. Many varieties have a weak form [jɚ] for your, which can, for example in dialogue, be spelled "yer". In some British regional pronunciations, such as Hiberno-English, there is a weak form [mi] for my, often spelled "me". A greater difference between strong and weak forms, and a more widespread use of weak forms, are associated with less formal registers, and may be indicated in writing by eye dialect spellings, such as ’em for them [əm]. The most formal register in this sense is singing, where strong forms may be used almost exclusively, apart (normally) from a.

In deriving weak forms from strong forms, the vowel is usually more central and may be shortened, sometimes merging to a syllabic consonant with any following [l], [m] or [n]. Changes to consonants are less frequent: an initial h is dropped unless the word is at the start of an utterance, and dental consonants may be elided at the end of the word. For example:

• The word and has strong form [ænd] and weak forms [ənd], [ən], [nd], [n].
• The word to has strong form [tuː], weak form [tʊ] before vowels, and weak form [tə] before consonants (or even before a vowel, inserting a glottal stop in between).

The 'em form of them is derived from the otherwise obsolete synonym hem: an unusual form of suppletion.

Some weak forms have restricted usage. For example, in RP usage:

• Dropping the [h] of her is common in "I saw her yesterday" but not in "I saw her mother" (possessive her).
• Demonstrative that uses the strong form even when unstressed. "I like that colour" (demonstrative, strong), as against "I like that you like it" (conjunction, weak).
• Stranded auxiliaries and prepositions use the strong form. "I found what I'm looking for." (stranded for, strong) as against "I'm looking for money" (for before noun, weak).

When to use the Exclamation Mark - the Rules
The Exclamation point should be sparingly used, particularly in prose. Its chief use is to denote emotion of some kind. When to use this type of punctuation with examples:

• It is generally employed with interjections or clauses used as interjections: "Alas! I am forsaken." "What a lovely landscape!"
• Expressions of strong emotion call for the exclamation: "Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!"
• When the emotion is very strong double exclamation points may be used: "Assist him!! I would rather assist Satan!!"